Saturday, March 11, 2017

Welcome Home Elder Brand!

Monday was the long awaited day for our family. My brother, Dallin, was finally coming home from his two year mission in Sao Paulo Brazil! My parents went a week before to meet him in Brazil and toured around while we all were dying back home as we kept seeing videos and photos of them together.

So we planned to all meet at the airport with a poster, noisemakers, and balloons. A couple of hours before their flight was supposed to arrive, my mom texted saying that they were delayed an hour. I was torn, because it put us right in the middle of nap time and we had been to urgent care the day before after Jane had ruptured her ear drum, so I was debating whether or not we should have her skip her nap.

But we decided to just all go together instead of me going alone and hope she would feel okay.

I got the girls ready and was almost to Ryan's work to pick him up when I realized I had left the poster at home! Ugh! I was SO sad that I forgot to grab it.

We met up with everyone else and divvied out the balloons and noisemakers Brittney brought, hoping that none of the security guards would get after us. haha

After just a few minutes of waiting, half of the balloons had already drifted to the ceiling.

Danika had taken a couple hours off of work to come to the airport, but when the flight was delayed, it meant she probably wasn't going to be able to make it after all, which was a big bummer. She called as soon as we got to the airport and said that she was just going to hop in the car and come after all. My mom had texted saying that they just landed, so we were all hoping Danika would make it in time and texting my mom to stall just a few minutes.

She zoomed over and we were all SO relieved, thinking that she had cut it so close, but then we ended up waiting another 20 minutes or so before they actually came out haha.

We all stood right at the exit, mistaking pretty much every woman for mom, and every other person for Dallin. Then they finally came through!

I got so emotional! I was not expecting to cry as much as I did! Ha! I told that to Ryan later on and he said, "You? You cry over a good salad!" RUDE! haha!

It was such a sweet moment to have all of us hugging, re-hugging, and hugging some more.

We were all one giant mess of loud crying, laughing, and hugging. Dallin looked so handsome and BLOND!

We were congesting half of the airport with our enormous family as we gabbed and asked about my parents' trip to Brazil!

I love this photo of all of them. All the girls were sobbing and clinging to Dallin for the first 10 minutes of him stepping off the airplane, but I guess that's what he gets for having a million sisters. ;)

We all headed back home and I made Dallin take a picture in front of the sign I forgot to bring haha.

It's been a fun week as we've tried to get together a lot to welcome him back home and we're so happy to be together again!